CD of the Day - "douBT: Never Pet A Durning Dog"

CD of the Day
douBt: "Never Pet A Burning Dog" (MoonJune) 2010 MJR032

Rating: ***** (5 stars)
Ferocious fusion (or cosmic jazz-rock, if you prefer) for the 21st century performed by a stunning power-trio. Keyboardist Alex Maguire (a monster on Fender Rhodes, plus Hammond organ, the vintage Mellotron and assorted synths) plays his ass off, in telephatic interaction with guitarist Michael Delville & drummer Tony Bianco, plus special guest Richard Sinclair, who plays electric bass on a couple of tracks ("Corale di San Luca," "Laughter") and also sings on two others. It's not a simple "disc," it's a storm, a hurricane manufactured as a CD. Jazz purists and snobs beware!

Tracks:
1. Corale di San Luca 3:05
2. Laughter 6:25
3. Over Birkerot 8:53
4. Sea 7:57
5. Passing Cloud 4:08
6. Cosmic Surgery 6:45
7. Aeon 7:28
8. Beppe's Shelter 8:16

Produced by douBt & Leonardo Pavkovic. Recorded in August 2009 in San Sebastiano da Pó (Italy) at Beppe Crovella's Electromantic Studio.
********
Album Profile:

With moods and registers ranging from heavy-rock riffs to cosmic grooves and on to more lyrical and pastoral flavors, douBt’s debut release, “Never Pet a Burning Dog”, sound like nothing less than the missing link between Sun Ra, John Zorn’s Masada, vintage Terje Rypdal, Sonic Youth and Ennio Morricone. The record also features guest contributions from Canterbury legend Richard Sinclair on vocals and bass.

A new power electric jazz trio featuring Alex Maguire (Hatfield and the North, Elton Dean, Michael Moore), Michel Delville (The Wrong Object, Comicoperando, TZGIV) and Tony Bianco (Dave Liebman, Paul Dunmall, Alex von Schlippenbach), douBt combines the energy of rock, the spirit of free-jazz and the lyricism of post-Canterbury Nu-Jazz.

Critics have praised Alex Maguire’s “encyclopedic breadth of references” (John Kelman, All About Jazz) and his capacity to be “at home in any style from rock to jazz to jazz-rock to free improvisation” (Steve Feigenbaum, Wayside Music). They have also hailed Michel Delville’s “artful compositions , quirky guitar work and super-flanged atmospherics” (Barry Cleveland, Guitar Player Magazine) and acclaimed Tony Bianco’s “improbable stamina and inventive phrasing” as well as his “supercharged and yet crisp metrical variations” (Julian Cowley, The Wire).

The results of their combined efforts amounts to a intriguing and monumental album, full of unexpected twists and turns and yet driven by a common force that draws as readily from Tony Williams (the comparison with the original line-up of the Lifetime is inevitable) as from British and American post-punk prog-jazz aesthetics ("Cosmic Surgery", "Beppe's Shelter"), a concept also reflected in Bianco’s freebeat, a way of playing through many different time signatures that releases an interplay of energies accomplished in one pulse (one thinks of the aptly named "Sea" or the strangely ethereal sonic landscapes of "Aeon").

The sheer body of sound produced by the trio is amazing in its intensity and magnitude. As for the state of collaboration, cooperation and complicity between the members of the group, it packs a shock, especially if one knows that this CD consists exclusively of first takes recorded live in the studio.

As for the vocals provided by Richard Sinclair, they confer to this disc a refreshingly paradoxical quality which bridges the gap between free improvisation and experimental songwriting, complexity and directness, as exemplified by the psychedelic bossa-nova "Passing Cloud" and the opening "Corale di San Luca", which unexpectedly leads into the polyrhythmic orgy of "Laughter" before the trio takes us into an unusual revisitation of Terje Rypdal's "Over Birkerot".

Despite its being rooted in the traditions that have inspired the respective careers of Bianco, Delville and Maguire, “Never Pet a Burning Dog” is one of the most forward looking electric jazz albums released in a long time and sounds like nothing before. It is an ambitious yet eminently accessible release as this experimental power trio never loses sight of grooves and catchy melodies.
*********
Artist Profile:

Alex Maguire has established himself as one of Britain’s most talented and exciting keyboard player, one who straddles across the boundaries of progressive rock (Hatfield and the North, Richard Sinclair’s RSVP, …), electric jazz (Psychic Warrior, Pip Pyle’s Bash, …) and improvised music (Evan Parker, Elton Dean, Alex Maguire-Michael Moore Duo, Tony Oxley, Han Bennink, …). His recent releases include the eponymously named and Portugal-based Wishful Thinking (Cleanfeed) and Alex Maguire Sextet’s Brewed in Belgium (Moonjune Records). Having studied with John Cage and Howard Riley he went on to perform, broadcast and record throughout Europe, the USA and Japan. He is currently working on a spoken word with piano set in collaboration with British novelist Jonathan Coe.

Michel Delville was born in Liege, Belgium. He has been performing and composing alternative music since the mid-1980s. His most recent projects include the internationally acclaimed Nu-Rock-Jazz quintet The Wrong Object (2003- ), a band which has collaborated with luminaries of British jazz such as Elton Dean, Harry Beckett and Annie Whitehead, and toured extensively throughout Europe. Their latest studio album, Stories from the Shed, released in 2008, has generated countless raving reviews in such leading publications as Jazzwise, Guitar Player, Musica Jazz and All About Jazz. Other recent projects include Belgian-Swiss punk-jazz combo TZGIV, Belgo-Dutch rock quintet The Moving Tones, Alex Maguire Sextet, and Ed Mann & Friends.

Tony Bianco was born in New York City. He has played and recorded with some of the most influential musicians of the international jazz scene, such as Dave Liebman, Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Elton Dean, Alex von Schlippenbach, Simon Picard, Reggie Workman, Paul Rutherford, Keith Tippett, Paul Rogers, Elliot Levine, Marcio Mattos, Luther Thomas, Jay Oliver and John Edwards. The sheer diversity of his discography reflects his need to be “loose and tense, free and strict” combine the sounds of straight and free jazz, closed and open form. His most recent releases include Vesuvius (Alex von Schlippenbach/Paul Dunmall/Paul Rogers/Tony Bianco; SLAM), Line Ish (Tony Bianco/Dave Liebman/Tony Marino; EMANEM) and In a Western Sense (33Records) as well as the more groovy and post-Milesian experiments of Free Beat (w. Elton Dean and John Wilkinson) and Monkey Dance (feat. Dave Liebman), on which he performs on drums, bass and piano.

Artists' websites:
www.myspace.com/doubt3